Landfall

The Stars Like Sand

The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry is a well-reviewed 2014 anthology of Australian science fiction, fantasy and horror poetry that I co-edited with P. S. Cottier. You can buy The Stars Like Sand from Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle ebook.

Men Briefly Explained

Men Briefly Explained is my 2011 poetry collection that explains men, briefly. You can buy Men Briefly Explained from Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle ebook.

My Library from LibraryThing

About Me

I'm a writer, editor, anthologist, and now blogger who was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England and moved to New Zealand with my family when I was 2.
I grew up on the West Coast and in Southland, then went to Dunedin to go to Otago University before moving to Wellington in 1993. I'm married with one child.
I'm juggling the writing of poetry, short fiction and novels, working part time, trying to be a good husband and father, and working hard to get New Zealand to take effective action on climate change - not to mention all the other problems the world faces. Life is busy!

I was very chuffed that my poem The Translator was selected as the first of the blog's Weekly Highlights, and it has since been joined by work by Marcus Speh, Emma Barnes, and Patrizia Monzani, with more to follow!

In 1982, a science fiction convention was held in Dunedin that changed lives and changed underwear. It went down in history as Octacon, and now, thirty years later, those who experienced Octacon for the first time are condemned to relive every agonising moment. What's more, it is even possible for others to join them in their communal madness. Look upon the mighty Octacon Reunion Poster, ye mortals, and despair! (Or, if your motto is 'nil desperandum', contact 2012octacon@gmail.com for further details.)

7 comments:

Hi Tim, thanks for the shout out. Your highlight poem is fantastic. I'm sad I cannot come to NZ Sci-Fi conventions, that would be my cup of down under tea exactly! I firmly believe there's more alien influence on the island than elsewhere...or perhaps it's just all those sheep. Cheers to you and have a productive 2012!

'The Beginnings of America' is both fun and weird, Tim, and evades classification, but while reading, I could have sworn it was a prose poem. (God, I love those useless debates.) Nice to see a new New Zealand journal launched on such an auspicious date, too...I look forward to reading the other stories. Or prose poems.

Marcus, you might be surprised to hear that there are far less sheep in NZ than there used to be, and far more cows! So I think it must be the alien influence at work.

Penelope, that's interesting, because I have written what I call prose poems, yet "The Beginnings of America" does not feel like one to me! I like the idea of a televised celebrity debate on where the prose poem/flash fiction boundary falls.

thank you Tim for this post! Your poem at the Aotearoa Affair and your story at Flash Frontier are wonderful additions to these ventures. And I too am curious about the sci-fi adventures. The changing underwear intrigues...

Thanks, Michelle. I hope to contribute more to one or both of those venues!

The "changing underwear" remark probably cannot be independently verified 30 years on - i.e. I made it up. But some lives were changed by the event, as I recall.

The New Zealand National Science Fiction Conventions aka Natcons started in 1979, so Octacon was the fourth of them. For those far away from Dunedin, here are details of the 2012 Natcon, to be held in Auckland: http://unconventional2012.wordpress.com/.

Tim, your flash fiction 'The Beginnings of America' is stunning - the concluding line particularly. I think there is a wonderful blurring between flash fiction-prose poetry-poetry and your piece exemplifies that. Thanks for introducing me to the journal, too - it looks like it has some great contributors :)

Thanks, Elizabeth - it took a bit of revision to get it to that state!

Graeme Lay's series of flash (or, as he called it, short-short) fiction anthologies got me interested in writing very short fiction, and I contributed to several of those, but I'd got out of the habit - Flash Frontier provides a good reason to get back into the habit again!